Introduction: The implementation of quality management systems (QMS) has been a strategy encouraged by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) for bodies within the National Health Surveillance System. Objective: This article describes and analyzes a project to support the self-implementation of QMS in state Health Surveillance units (Visas). Method: Experience report, which considered the results of an online activity evaluation questionnaire, answered by Visas workers participating in the project, addressing, among other aspects, facilitating and hindering factors for the self- implementation process in the respective institutions, as a corpus of analysis. Results: The facilitators were teaching material, consultancy, support for self-implementation, and feedback on documents produced to meet the QMS requirements. The obstacles were the lack of structure, time, and maturity of some teams in dealing with the demands of self-implementation, the excess of work resulting from the overlapping of daily activities with the production of documents for quality management, as well as the absence felt by teams that required more faceto-face time with project consultants. Conclusions: The process brought gains to Visas, in general, but it was clear that for the effective continuation of the self-implementation process, commitment and dedication by managers and teams are necessary.